Bachelor Terrarium

August 11, 2008

The back wall of my apartment is predominantly window, about waist high from the parking lot outside. There is physical security, but only token separation from the world. Curtains exist, but are rarely in place, and the foot traffic is steady and curious. When I sleep, with windows open, passerby’s could spit on me, were they to choose so.

This should trouble me, yet there is a strange appeal to residing in a bachelor terrarium. The loss of anonymity is bracing. It’s like some bastard cousin to my writerly instinct delights in living life in clear view; forcing my personal minutia into a public context. A sort of Proustian, performance art, blogging.

There is an implied challenge to not deviate my behavior in the face of discovery. I spent 20 minutes yesterday adding jug solos to my favorite bluegrass tracks. I sat there in plain sight, underwear clad, blowing enthusiastically into an oversized wine bottle…badly out of time with the accompanying music. There were at least three witnesses to the display. I have no illusions to the quality of response it provoked, but the notion of my identity geminating in a strangers mind is gratifying: the myth of naked jug band guy filtering its way through the city. I need to hit the gym.

Interesting parallel universes – some of your life is revealed in your writing to the extent you allow it with tales of personal experiences and some of your actual existence is revealed through the window as you allow it with open curtains.

I have envy. I just committed to a new place in Vancouver…it’s a basement suite, it’s got pink walls, the toilet is purple, and the shower is in the kitchen…I believe there is one window. BUT, the lovely Hungarian couple upstairs is cat-tolerant. Perhaps I’ll put on a similar show for them. Alas, I cannot afford wine…maybe an empty timbits box?

I get the attraction of performance though…it’s why people are inspired to stupid stunts when they’ve got an audience, and just contemplate them when alone. It’s why legions of drunk males take to stage diving, hordes of drunk women participate in wet t-shirt contests, and young celebrities attempt rehab. The witnesses make otherwise ridiculous behaviour somehow rewarding, regardless of the impression given.

Let’s have an exhibitionist showdown. I’ll barbeque topless on my balcony in front of the National Science Foundation building and its staid corporate employees, and you continue to sit in your underwear and come up with outrageous antics to germinate the minds of your passerbys. We’ll see who gets the police called first.